Originally posted by iforget
If I actually saw a stegosaurus in the wild with its huge size of around 30 feet in length and 12 feet in height I would most likely assign it a more
prominent and important role in my set of carvings than what was given here. Even without knowledge of dinosaurs I am sure it would be obvious that
this creature would be something unusual and special so much so that I feel certain it would get a little special treatment.
edit on 8/1/2012 by iforget because: (no reason given)
I agree.
I personally don´t believe dinosaurs survived to modern times (except for birds, that is), although I would be the happiest man in the world if they
had.
What bugs me about most supossed depictions of dinosaurs in ancient art is that they always seem to show the same famous species (or, if we get
technical, genera) of dinosaurs once and again; Stegosaurus, Triceratops, "Brontosaurus" (paleontologists would call it Apatosaurus)... I think the
same, famous dinos were depicted in the Ica stones? (btw, are those already widely considered a hoax, or do they still have defenders?)
Not only is it suspicious that these depictions show only the famous dinos; it is also illogical. Why would the Ica stones, for example, depict
Triceratops or Stegosaurus, if those dinosaurs were exclusive of the Northern Hemisphere? (Stegosaurus from North America and Europe, Triceratops thus
far only known from the USA and Canada). There is good evidence that South America had a separate fauna ever since the Cretaceous, and if dinosaurs
had survived to modern times in South America, we would expect to see depictions of descendants of the South American dinosaurs that made it to the
latest Cretaceous, wouldn´t we?
That would be titanosaurs, abelisaurs, noasaurids, unenlagiines, and now it seems, carcharodontosaurs, but no ceratopsians or stegosaurs at all.
(I'm new to the forum and I guess there must be a thread on the Ica stones somewhere, but I'm just making a point here, so I apologize for going
slightly off topic).
The so called "stegosaur" from Cambodia looks little like a stegosaur to me; it has a short tail, its four legs are about the same length, and it
has a huge heavyset head; real stegosaurs (as evidenced by fossils) had long necks carried upright like a bird (this is according to the newest
paleontological findings; they didn´t have horizontal necks as popularly depicted), had very long and powerful tails armed with spikes, and their
forelegs were a lot shorter than their hindlegs.
Even if we admit that ancient carvings don´t have to be particularly accurate, wouldn´t the artist, if inspired by a real stegosaur, add at least
the tail spikes which would be the animal's most impressive trait aside from its size?
To me, the carving looks like some sort of mammal; the tail is short and hangs behind the body (instead of being horizontally suspended in the air
like that of a real stegosaur). The head is big and heavy and oriented downwards. It may be depicting some sort of bovid (if you look closely the head
seems to have two big horns).
Also, here's a pic of a carving found around the same place; as you can see, what look like plates in the "stegosaur" carving are simply ornamental
figures used here to surround another animal figure:
geochristian.files.wordpress.com...
I don´t think there's any reason to assume this is a stegosaur, and I agree with iforget that if any sort of giant dinosaur had survived to modern
times, they would probably be depicted very frequently in ancient art, as they would be the biggest, scariest, most powerful animals around, the ones
that would capture imagination and inspire myth and legend over all others. The fact that south east Asian civilizations revered elephants, lions and
other such creatures over all others should be enough proof that dinosaurs were nowhere around.